quotations about loss
I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much about.
J. D. SALINGER
The Catcher in the Rye
The still affection of the heart
Became an outward breathing type,
That into stillness past again,
And left a want unknown before;
Although the loss had brought us pain,
That loss but made us love the more.
ALFRED TENNYSON
"The Miller's Daughter"
So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Sputnik Sweetheart
He who carries nothing loses nothing.
FRENCH PROVERB
It is better to lose than lose more.
SPANISH PROVERB
That loss is most discreditable which is caused by negligence.
SENECA
attributed, Cassell's Book of Quotations, Proverbs and Household Words
Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI, Part III
Loss alone is but the wounding of a heart; it is memory that makes it our ruin.
BRIAN RUCKLEY
Fall of Thanes
You snooze, you lose.
AMERICAN PROVERB
Many things are lost for want of asking.
ENGLISH PROVERB
Loss and possession, death and life are one,
There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.
HILAIRE BELLOC
The Verse of Hilaire Belloc
After one loss comes many.
FRENCH PROVERB
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
"One Art"
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
ALFRED TENNYSON
"In Memoriam A.H.H."
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.
MARK TWAIN
"Which Was the Dream?"
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
ALFRED TENNYSON
"In Memoriam A.H.H."
Catastrophe is numerical. Loss is singular, one beloved at a time.
ANNA QUINDLEN
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
He who does not gain loses.
FRENCH PROVERB
Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.
ROBERT FROST
"The Ingenuities of Debt"
Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Kafka on the Shore